The memories of today are clearer than any other day. It was a beautiful Tuesday and I got to work early. Was in the train yard in Canarsie about 5 miles away from the towers as the crow flies.

I finished going through the train yard and decided to take a break. I head to the crew room and the tv was static. I said to a motormen what happened to the tv. They said a small plane hit the WTC and it knocked the tv signal out.

I immediately knew it was a terrorist attack. Years of living by JFK I know that no plane is ever gonna hit a building, a pilot would put it in the water first.
Lower Manhattan is like a no fly zone because of a few reasons but the approach to Laguardia and Newark being so close it is rare a jet or a small plane would be flying there. The exception is the tourist helicopters and small planes but they fly over the river.

The guys say to me you can look out the bathroom window and see the smoke. I go there and watched the second plane hit.

My first thought was to call home and let my family know where in the subway I was working since I bounced around a lot. Called Mom and she told me that my brother Eddie was working in the towers and they were waiting to hear from him.

Within a few minutes they shut down the subway trains from heading to Manhattan. I called the main office and they told me to go home.

I took the train to work and now they weren't running. Had to start walking. Luckily caught a bus down to Canarsie Pier. The Belt parkway was jammed going to Manhattan. Very strange to see Long Island fire trucks in Brooklyn heading towards the city. No traffic at all going towards Long Island. Walked about 5 miles to Howard Beach and my brother Bobby picked me up.

He let me know they heard from Eddie and he was ok. Covered in dust when the building fell but he was on his way to Brooklyn walking over the Brooklyn bridge to my sister in laws job.

Lost 3 friends that day. Could have been a lot more since our town ambulance went there and got crushed when the buildings fell. The 4 guys on the ambulance were missing for hours. 2 guys got cancer and one has passed at around 45 years old. This attack is still killing people and that makes me sad.

One of the first photos I ever took was me standing between the two towers looking up. Little did I know I would be taking photos later on in life. Speaking of photos, the iconic one of the 3 firemen carrying the flag. One of them is George Johnson. He was on one of the softball teams I played on. Kind of a different perspective when you know one of the guys in the photo. Makes it much closer to home.

I’m Deborah and I started this site. Read more about me and my kids and my story at my site DeborahCarney.com. Below is my 9/11 story.

After a rough weekend and a tough and scary Monday, we woke up late Tuesday morning and turned on the TV expecting to see the Rosie show. “What’s this? The news? Is this a War of the Worlds type show? Is this live???? That is an airplane flying into the World Trade Center!”

I had already started our morning routine by turning on Dan’s computer and the TV and was getting ready to get him up when we were riveted to the TV. Tired from a rough day and late night, what we were seeing wasn’t making any sense. The computer fired up and we started the programs running, Yahoo Instant Messenger was one of the first we always opened. I took Dan into the bathroom, got him dressed and into his wheelchair, all the while listening and trying to comprehend.

My son Dan and I were in NYC, in an NYU dorm on Washington Square Park. The semester was supposed to start Tuesday September 11, 2001. We moved him there from our home in Rochester, NY two weeks before. Dan has Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a motor neuron disease that he was born with. He never walked or was able to bear weight, and had been in a power wheelchair since his teens. Before that it was a manual wheelchair.

Dan was a writer and had already spent a year at Hofstra University studying Journalism. But his passion was writing screenplays. He had applied to NYU’s prestigious Film Writer’s program and had been accepted. Everything was supposed to be set up with him having personal aides ready and available for him like he had at Hofstra, but there was a glitch and the school hadn’t gotten that set up. So I was staying in the dorm room with Dan while we got things straightened out.

In the meantime, we had to go back to Rochester and get his brother Chris, who also had SMA and move him into a dorm at Hoftra. He had the same room and personal aide as Dan did the prior year, so his move went a bit smoother. Chris and I also showed cats, and the weekend of September 8 and 9, 2001 there was a show near Washington, DC. Dan’s girlfriend lived in Baltimore so it worked out that we could all have a fun weekend before they got immersed in school.

Now if you have ever parked a car in NYC you know that it is expensive and not at all easy. So once we realized it was going to be a possibly a few more weeks before they found Dan an aide, I decided to drive the van we had back to Rochester, and fly back. The timing on this was pretty crucial because Dan would be alone while I was driving and flying. The timing looked fine, it was 5 – 6 hours to drive to Rochester, there was a Jet Blue flight at 8 pm from Rochester that would get me back to JFK by 9:30, and a shuttle would have me back at the dorm by 10 – 10:30 pm.

I left Dan with food, TV remote and drinks – he had a small refrigerator with a microwave on it all set up within his reach. His room was pretty well set up for him, so the only issue was hopefully he wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom while I was gone. We really didn’t know anyone in the building yet, so he had no one to call if there was a problem. So there couldn’t be any problems, right?

I left somewhere around 9 or 10 am and the drive was smooth. No traffic or construction issues. So far so good. I packed up some extra things to have with me, books, notebooks, things to work on. I didn’t have a laptop yet, and didn’t bring my desktop computer, I was going on a plane after all and shouldn’t need to be in NYC too much longer. I got to the airport and the flight was delayed. That was going to be a problem, since we had this all timed out and I had the shuttle reservation and Dan was alone. I called and let him know.

At the airport it got scarier, I started to freak out. They were talking about the weather and the possibility of canceling the flight. That was unacceptable. Just when I was about to start looking at other airlines they called us to board. We left at around 9:30 pm, when I was supposed to be landing. But at least we were on our way. Except once we got to JFK there were still weather issues plus all the other delayed planes that needed to land. We circled. And circled. I started to panic again. What if they sent us back to Rochester? What if there wasn’t a shuttle available once we landed? I hadn’t been in NYC long, I didn’t know about the endless supply of cabs or the fact that you could get a shuttle from the terminal. I also didn’t really know how far it was from JFK to the dorm.

We finally landed at around 11. I was still panicking about the shuttle, but was able to get on one fairly easily. I told the driver Washington Square because I really didn’t know my address. It was Goddard Hall but of course the driver had no clue where that was. We went around the terminal and picked up other passengers and finally headed out. I was still pretty freaked because Dan was alone for a long time now and I didn’t know who was being dropped off where and how long it would take.

After an interesting drive out of Brooklyn to Manhattan, the driver stopped at the base of the Twin Towers, near the Hilton hotel on Washington Street. I looked up and said to myself that I would be back since I hadn’t gotten to the top of them yet. We all looked around to see who was going to get off and the driver looked at me. I said no, I’m going to Washington Square. The whole shuttle groaned and the driver slammed the door shut and started up the street. It was 12:05 am on September 11, 2001.

It was 12:30 or so when I was dropped off at the dorm. Now even more fun ensued. I had no ID that said I should be there, Dan’s cell phone battery had died and he couldn’t get to the room phone apparently because when the security guard called up he didn’t answer. So here I am standing in the lobby of a dorm at NYU with suitcases, drenched from rain, my son is on the 3rd floor and I can’t get to him. I don’t remember when she finally let me go up, I remember trying to explain that Dan was handicapped and had been alone for over 14 hours and he needed me to get to him. It got heated. I was very upset. I told her to go up and see for herself but she was alone and couldn’t go up. It took about an hour for me to convince her to let me go up. I think she finally called someone to go with me, all I knew is that I needed to get up there.

Once upstairs, Dan was fine but he wanted something to eat so I went back out, checking with security that I would be able to get back in. There was a 24 hour deli on the corner, as there is on most Manhattan corners. I got the first of many orders of chicken fingers and fries, we ate and finally settled in to bed at 2 am or thereabouts. We were both pretty tired.

Computer is on and Yahoo messenger is pinging away, we’re still trying to figure out what is going on on the TV. I look at Yahoo and Dan’s sister Liz is frantically trying to get ahold of us to see if we are ok. The events of the morning start to unfold. She tells us that they have been trying to call us, sure enough the phone neither the room phone or Dan’s cell phone are working. We’re kind of surprised that we have internet, but that is because NYU has it’s own intranet. This was how we were able to stay in touch with the outside world.

We didn’t know where we were in relation to the Twin Towers. We were at West 4th Street. The fire alarms went off. Out of the building we went. It was a drill, there was a head count, all students had to be accounted for. No one knew if we should stay inside, if we could use the air conditioners or if we should have the windows closed. No one knew how close to the Towers we were. I remembered the drive from hours before and didn’t think it was that far. And I was very glad no one got off the shuttle there.

I still don’t really know if we saw the second plane hit live, time was all scrambled up. We watched the towers fall on the TV. We knew we had friends in places they were talking about, like Tribeca. Dan went downstairs to take a look around while I stayed up talking to Liz on Yahoo and watching the TV. He came back up and said he couldn’t see anything down Broadway so figured we were pretty much ok. I went out a while later and we walked to Broadway and he turned towards the north and said “See, nothing there.” I looked south and froze. “Dan, turn around.” He spun he chair towards where I was looking and we both stopped breathing for a minute. There was smoke billowing from what looked like just a few blocks away.

The view towards Downtown from Broadway and West 4th Street. The clouds of smoke were visible for days. Notice the Buses lining the street. They were there to go transport survivors… They were there all day with their motors running.

And it was quiet. The subway had stopped. There were no airplanes in the sky. No cars clogging the streets. We were in the middle of 3 major airports, there were always planes. Then we heard them, F-16s screaming by. And suddenly Broadway was lined with buses with their motors idling. They were parked there ready to go get the survivors and bring them out of the area. They never moved.

Cars, black cars with sirens and lights inside them, unmarked black cars all going in one direction, south. The wrong way on Broadway. Occasionally one covered in heavy gray dust would come north. People were walking with masks on their faces covering their nose and mouth. We even saw dogs with the masks on.

A car covered in debris racing up Broadway on 9/11/2001

Dan went back inside, there were obviously no classes that day. We heard that below 14th Street was closed. No one could come in, we could leave if we walked up there, but we had no ID so wouldn’t be let back into the area. That was 10 short blocks away. We were in lock down.

I walked south. To see how far I could go. As a photographer all I could think of was this was history in the making and I had to see what I could capture without getting in trouble. The Mayor said anyone below Canal street with a camera would have their camera confiscated. I didn’t know where Canal Street was from where we were. I want to say it was about 10 blocks. I walked across Manhattan and down to Canal Street. That is where I saw this.

On a fence at the barrier from West Side Highway where people were not allowed to walk further downtown was a plastic flag tied to a pole with a white plastic rose tucked in.

Here is a link to a few more photos that I have scanned from the couple of days after.

I wrote this Narrative for a Writing Class I was taking in October 2001. One month after 9-11-2001 was still fresh in my mind. I just re-read this 10 years later and thought it would be something to share with all of you. I know we all have our stories to share for this terrible day. My instructor told me to save this so I could share it with my children one day. I did save it and I’m happy I did. I will share this with my children later when they get home from school.

The Morning of September 11, 2001 by Ann A. Ricketts

The date of September 11, 2001 will live forever in my memory. It was a day of great sadness and horror. As I think back to that day, I remember how it all started.

I arrived at work at 8:15 A.M. ready to start another typical day at work. I turned on my computer and went to fetch coffee and breakfast. I chatted with some co-workers about current events then returned to my desk. I had some free time before I started work so I logged onto AOL to check my e-mail. There was nothing new, just more junk mail that I deleted. At approximately 8:45 A.M. I saw my sister log on and we started chatting. Suddenly an e-mail popped up on my work e-mail from CNN. It was breaking news stating that a plane had just hit the one of the Twin Towers, details to come later. I cut and paste the e-mail into an instant message and sent it to my sister who responded in disbelief. I looked around the office to see other co-workers discussing something about the towers. I logged off with my sister and went over to talk with them; apparently they had received similar e-mails. “Let’s go out on the roof and check it out”, I said. We walked over and pulled open one of the windows.[Read more…]

You have all read stories of 9-11 told by civilians. Here is 9-11 as seen thru the eyes of a soldeir.

–Where were You? It is a little before eight a.m. in the DIVARTY headquarters on Fort Hood, Texas as I follow my buddy, Chief Warrant Officer-3 Bob Kerley, into Colonel Ramirez’s office where several other soldiers are watching CNN. We have just heard a report that an aircraft has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. We speculate that it must be a small Cessna sight-seeing aircraft that made a mistake. Several of us laugh at the stupidity of the pilot. I tell Bob, “Hey, it’s happened before. Back in the 1940s, a World War II bomber crashed into the Empire State Building during a thick fog. I wonder if there is a thick fog in New York City this morning?” The Sergeant Major overhears me and speaks up, “It doesn’t matter what the weather is – no fixed-wing aircraft should be flying that close to buildings. They’re supposed to fly in the middle of the Hudson River – something just doesn’t sound right.” As we watch smoke billowing out of one of two tall buildings on the TV, I say, “Well, I hope not too many people were hurt.” Suddenly, from the corner of the TV screen, another aircraft – much larger than a small Cessna – enters the frame and slams into the second tower. A hush falls over the group. Then several whisper, “We’re under attack!”…..

I remember going to school that warm September day. I remember my first class was economics. I remember a sudden urge to go to the snack shop halfway through class. I remember leaving class and heading up the stairs to the main student hall. As I walked towards the snack shop I remember the radio. First I heard the noise, and then I heard the news: A plane had just hit the World Trade
Center, and then a second one. I did not realize at the time but my life had changed forever. It took me about ten minutes before I remembered that my father had taken a plane that morning to California, and then the possibility hit me.

The clarity of what had become of my father came to me an hour later in a conversation with my uncle:[Read more…]

A clear blue sky arched over Kansas on the morning of September 11, 2001. I know that, can still see it, because driving home from an early trip to the grocery I glanced up at the white paths of exhaust left by planes curving back toward the airport.

We were expatriate New Yorkers living with our two sons in suburban Johnson County, where fields of hay bales and meandering horses lay incongruously across the road from supermarkets, high schools, and corporate headquarters with their vast parking lots.

Leaving New York had made us unhappy. Since that first relocation, we have moved on though never back. But in my memory Kansas is always becoming a fonder place. I am trying to say that I am glad we lived there, especially on 9/11.[Read more…]

We were sitting in our bedroom preparing to go to work. Our son entered the room and told us that a commercial jet had just flown into one of the world trade center towers. Not sure of what he had just told us we tuned the t.v to KATU news, just in time to see the second plane hit the other tower. We were caught between shock,extreme sadness,and eventually anger.

Myself being a prior service member my first response was,something needs to be done and done right NOW. I called the ARMY recruiter and requested to re-enlist A.S.A.P.. only to be told I was to old to go. But that does not mean that I gave up, I salute every military troop that I cross paths with and thank them for their dedication to the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!

I worked at an embroidery business located on the edge of Davenport, Iowa. My mother-in-law and my youngest son also worked there. We were busy running machines and trimming garments when my 20 year old son arrived. He asked urgently, “Haven’t you heard?” I smiled at him he always made me smile, and asked what news. “A plan flew into the twin towers.’ At that moment I thought that a small plane had flight problems and had crashed into the towers & I couldn’t remember where or what the towers were.

“Was anyone hurt?” I could see he was frustrated by my answer and said that it was a passenger airplane and didn’t I know that was where the United Nations were in New York. We turned the radio on and listened in horror to the unfolding events. We continued to do our job but it was a solemn and surreal day. So many things were going through my mind, that we would soon be at war, I didn’t want to loose a son to war and that the economy would suffer, maybe I should grow a victory garden. I felt what could I do and I knew that the way we perceived our world would be changed.

Friday, September 9, 2011 I called my son to remind him to call his grandmother’s Sunday because it is Grandparent’s Day and to tell him that when I think of 911 I think of him and how he came into work without saying hello and told us the news.

I was working at the school in the early am. I teach 2nd grade. We were all in the office making copies and preparing for the day. One of the other teachers came in and told us what had happened. We weren’t sure what was going on. We were called into the lounge and given safety procedures and were told to hold our emotions intact. One of the teachers had a break and was watching when the 2nd plane hit. She emailed us all. I was scared to death. Where were my own children? My husband was out of town. I was screaming in my head. I wanted to go home and hug my own family. I knew I had to maintain and stay with the kids. I had to be strong. I later thought there were many brave people that day. I saw a lot of strong women working hard to not run out of that building to their own families.

Later on that night my mom came over. She worked for the border patrol and knew way too much. She withdrew a lot of money and gave me half of it. I panicked a little and put water and canned goods, blankets and extra clothes in my car. (seems silly now but at the time it was what I had to do.) I skipped dinner that night and was glued to the t.v. I knew the world as we knew it had just changed before my eyes. I thought of the quote from Isoroku Yamamoto of the Pearl Harbor bombing. “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” I prayed it wouldn’t happen again what happened in Hiroshima. Isoroku Yamamoto